Metro Transit Police officers competed with each other for numbers of arrests, citations, and other enforcement actions in a weekly competition hosted by a supervisor last summer, Metro confirmed on Thursday.

The contest, first reported by the Washington Post, took place out of the District 1 station and involved officers working in Fort Totten.

Speaking outside the Metro Board meeting on Thursday, Transit Police Chief Ronald A. Pavlik said another officer in the same district flagged the contest, which was started by a lieutenant. The police department conducted an internal investigation.

“As soon as we were made aware of it, we stopped it,” Pavlik said.

The leader of the contest was not fired, Pavlik said, but “corrective action” was taken and the program was dismissed.

Metro spokesperson Dan Stessel told the Post that the contest took place “without the knowledge or approval of [Metro Transit Police Department] command staff. MTPD does not condone the use of competitions with regard to productivity.”

The contest was promoted by an internal document announcing the time periods for the “friendly competition” and ways in which officers could earn points. Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen provided WAMU with a letter he and At-large Councilmember Robert White sent to Chief Pavlik in December, asking whether the contest was real and condemning its possible existence. That letter included a screenshot detailing a break down of points and the contest’s rules.

“Effective immediately, your Leadership will be recognizing your efforts by highlighting a WEEKLY WINNER whose combined efforts throughout the week surpass their peers,” the first line of the flier reads. “The 1st WEEKLY WINNER will be notified and announced this Sunday, July 21st.”

The rubric for the competition valued an arrest at 20 points; citations or moving violations at four points each; 10 parking tickets at 1 point; working “pop-up events” at one point; and reports at three points, among other criteria. The Post reports that one person won a $20 movie gift card as a prize, reportedly paid for by a supervisor’s own money, according to Metro.

“Good Luck All, ‘May the odds be forever in your favor,’” the announcement concludes—a nod to a signature line in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games series.

Pavlik was asked about the scoring rubric by reporters, and whether higher points for arrests encouraged officers to make more of them.

“I guess they were trying to say, maybe an arrest takes longer to process and more working well, I don’t know her rationale,” Pavlik said of the lieutenant’s scoring guidelines.

Chief Pavlik said on Thursday that there were no spikes in arrests or citations during that time period, and that the leader was trying to “empower her officers to do work.”

“I applaud the leader for trying to think outside the box and motivate young officers to work, but obviously the perception of that it’s a little out of context. It shouldn’t have been done,” Pavlik said.

Council members Allen and White’s letter to Metro officials followed a heated public hearing in late 2019 that discussed excessive use of force and unnecessary stops of people of color by Metro Transit Police.

“We are concerned that, according to the attached document, officers receive 20 points per arrest,” the letter reads. “Such a high number of points in comparison to other interactions clearly encourages arrests, incentivizes confrontation between officers and the community, and trivializes the serious impact arrests have on members of the public.”

Allen told WAMU that he has not received a response to the letter from Metro Transit Police.

“We continue to see these problems,” Allen said, citing the arrest of a 13-year-old boy by Metro Transit Police that sparked outrage late last week. Authorities took the boy to the ground and handcuffed him for what they called “disorderly conduct.”

“Everybody who sets foot on Metro Transit should have confidence that the police who are there are focused on public safety, not on meeting a quota or playing a game,” Allen said.

Rebekah Mason, a member of the Metro’s Riders’ Advisory Council and legal services attorney, told WAMU that she believed the revelations confirmed community suspicions and mistrust toward Metro Transit Police.

“People that I shared this with kind of reacted to me like, ‘Wow, we knew it, but now we really know it,’” she said.

“For myself, as an advocate and as an advocate for traditionally-underrepresented communities, I think this is just a slap in the face,” she said.

When asked about community trust of the agency, Chief Pavlik said he thinks MTPD is transparent with its investigations, pointing to the immediate action taken to stop the contest.

Both Council members Allen and White have pledged to bring up the competition, and other community concerns over Metro Transit Police practices, in an upcoming performance oversight hearing next week. But Allen admits that there are few ways for the D.C. Council to hold Metro Transit Police accountable.

“We have no oversight of the Metro Transit Police Department,” he told WAMU.

In an ideal world, Allen said, he’d like to “make it so that MTPD officers can be held accountable when they’re in the District boundaries.” But, since Metro—and its police force—span multiple jurisdictions, that’s “difficult,” according to Allen.

D.C. community members feel that reality every day, according to Rebekah Mason.

“There’s this reputation in the community for Metro Transit Police,” she said. “They just operate without rules.”

This story was updated to include comments from Metro Transit Police Chief Ronald A. Pavlik.

This story originally appeared on WAMU.